What is this article about?
We have all encountered chat over the web, that can be Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and the list goes on.
Just to give a bit of context, you send a message to a person or a group, they see the message and reply back. Simple yet complex.
To develop a chat app you would need to be aware of new messages as soon as they arrive.
Usually, to get information from the server you need send an HTTP request. With websockets, the server lets you know when there is new information without asking it.
In this article, we'll leverage the real-time communication provided by Socket.io to create an open chat application that allows users to send and receive messages from several users on the application. You will also learn how to detect the users who are online and when a user is typing.
💡 To read this article you'll need to have a basic knowledge of React.js and Node.js to comprehend this article.